Lake Weir's Fray overcomes injury to win section, place at state meet

Nothing was easy for Lake Weir junior BeJai Fray on her way to becoming the only county lifter to place at the FHSAA girls weightlifting state meet.

By Richard BurtonCorrespondent

Nothing was easy for Lake Weir junior BeJai Fray on her way to becoming the only county lifter to place at the FHSAA girls weightlifting state meet.Fray battled a shin injury and wasn't even released to lift until the Friday before the Section 4 qualifier.She passed her first test easily and was the lone county lifter to win her weight class at sectionals.From there, Fray, the Star-Banner girls lifter of the year, took fourth in the state at 139 pounds“We knew she wasn't 100 percent (at state) and we just went down there to compete and have fun,” said her father, Wesley Fray, who coaches the LWHS girls weightlifting and track and field teams with his wife, Jo. “Fourth place was good. It was a little bit of a surprise because we didn't know how much she could bear on that leg having just been cleared two weeks prior.“She (set a personal best) in the bench press (with a lift of 185) rather easily and she could have gone heavier looking back at it. It was a lot of fun.”The 185-pound bench was the highest in the 139-pound weight class, which enabled Fray to total 325 pounds at state.“Basically, after I had my surgery, I had to focus on walking first,” said Fray, who is also a dominant track & field athlete in the spring. “From surgery, I had atrophy and I had to build up my leg muscles again and I couldn't squat, so practice was really tough because I couldn't really do any legs, so I had to do arms, so that's why bench press came in handy for me at state.”She had benched 175 at sectionals, but raised her game when it mattered most at state.“I love bench more than doing legs,” BeJai Fray said. “When we are doing upper body I am good, but when we are doing legs I am like ‘uh, I don't want to do it, but I still have to do it.”Her bench press increased by 35 pounds between her junior and senior years. She clean-and-jerked 140 pounds as a sophomore, but had to back off because of her shin injury.As a junior, BeJai was able to focus more on lifting more because she didn't play basketball and increased her weekly workouts.“If you want to play sports, you've got to be strong,” Jo Fray said. “When we went to the weightlifting competition (at state), half of the (top) track teams were there. Kids I've seen running in Orlando were there and that really stresses how important weightlifting is. It's not just for track and it's not just for football. It's for all of those sports to help them get better. I see it happening all over Florida.”Jo Fray began lifting weights as a junior at Orlando Oak Ridge prior to her career at LSU. She learned the clean-and-jerk and deadlift while training with her younger brother.With the Frays leading the way and their daughter dominating, Lake Weir has made a name for itself in both track and field and girls weightlifting over the past couple of years.In 2013, the Hurricanes had the best finish for a county girls weightlifting team with a third-place showing in Section 4.“Helping the kids believe in themselves is the big thing,” Jo Fray said. “Once you get that, it's a lot of fun and you really love watching them grow.”The previous year, Lake Weir tied for the most state qualifiers from the county with three.“It's awesome and before I came here, when I was in eighth grade, they didn't have any type of girls team whatsoever (at LWHS),” said BeJai Fray, one of the top-ranked long jumpers in the nation. “I had to come here and recruit (athletes out of the hall) and then the girls behind me wanted to do it and we just had to encourage all of the girls to get up and go.”Athletics aren't the only thing the youngest Fray excels at. She's also part of Lake Weir's very-challenging International Baccalaureate program.“Once I got to high school and IB, it changed everything,” said BeJai, who has won five AAU National Championships in track and field. “It's a lot of time management. You go to school, you practice and then you've got to get home and jump on the homework as soon as possible.”UCF, Alabama, LSU, Penn, Princeton, Columbia and Georgia are among the schools looking at BeJai, who won the AAU national title in the heptathlon for her age group last year, the same sport her mother was an All-American in at LSU.“We're marketing (BeJai) as an athlete,” Wesley Fray said. “She can run the 100, she can do the long jump, she can run a relay … it makes you very marketable when you are that versatile.”This season, the Class 3A state championship in the long jump is a definite possibility, as are titles in the 100 and 4x100.While state glory is a huge goal, success in the classroom is a priority for the Frays.“It's a lot of work and there are a lot of nights with a book in her face, but it's important and that comes first,” Jo Fray said. “That's why they say ‘student-athlete.' The student part comes first, so that's important. We're very proud of her.”